This HDR image is a picture I took in Porto on my first visit to the city. For anyone who does not know where Porto is, it is in Portugal by the Douro river and with it’s exit towards the ocean. This square was fascinating due to the converging lines on the floor almost flowing towards the buildings at the end of the square.
As I was looking though my collection of images, I remembered a story my friend told me about the history of the town when one faith tried to force the other to convert because one faith was in majority so of course the minority had to obey. And he was telling me how in order to blend in the minority faith invented chicken sausages to blend in and be seen as converts. Needless to say that for the minority community they still had symbols on the walls so that they knew which family lived in which home, and how these minor details would not be so obvious to the uninitiated.
And what does this story and image have to do with convergence? When the titled popped into my head I was thinking of how so many of our own thoughts and ideas and impressions of self often converge into one point to make us feel like we know who and what we are. and then when i looked closer to the actual origin of the word it is a composite Latin word con “with, together” and vergere“to bend, turn, tend toward”. And then I wondered how many of our internal thoughts come together and almost bend together to one idea, one concept of what and who we are. And thought the lens of this one singular or convergent idea; we act and react to the world around us.
We identify ourself as one thing in the hope that we are accepted by the others as being part of them. We bend our own truths and expectations to the will of an other for fear of not belonging. And when we consider how much of our own self we have to give up in order to fit in , in order to be seen as the majority and not minority, we fail to notice that with each surrendered part we are less us, and we become more them.
Individuality is a threat, it is seen as divergent, it is seen in the negative, and then I ask you what makes you uniquely you? It is the convergence of your thoughts and ideas of yourself, or is it the assimilation of that which is not yours but is part of another?
How frightened are you to be an individual with it’s own thoughts and feelings, be cantered of who you really are? How frightening is it the idea to show the quirky side of you, that which you often hide for fear of not being accepted?
We are in 2021 in the year after the dreaded 2020 when the world continues to be on hold, when standing out of the crowed is frowned upon the most. We have to be heard, or else. We are those sausage makers trying to be seen as converts. 2021 is a year where we can re-define who we are, when the world is open to all possibilities.
Are you willing to be divergent, and be uniquely you, and recognise that the convergence of all those beautiful aspects of you, make up a human that is special and worth noticing?
Are you willing to converge the beauty within with the potential of your creativity? Have you started the journey within?
What beautiful human qualities converge within you? Are you bending to the will of others or you are gathering strength to turn within?
As always join in the conversation in a comment, or journal your thoughts. We are ready to evolve, join us on the journey of discovery.
